Recovery Thoughts and Quotes 4/15

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AA Thought for the Day
(courtesy AAOnline.net)

April 15, 2008

Self-restraint

One unkind tirade or one willful snap judgment
can ruin our relation with another person for a whole day,
or maybe a whole year.
Nothing pays off like restraint of tongue and pen.
We must avoid quick-tempered criticism and furious, power-driven argument.
The same goes for sulking or silent scorn.
These are emotional booby traps baited with pride and vengeance.
Our first job is to sidestep the traps.
© 1953 AAWS, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, p.91
With permission, Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.


Thought to Ponder . . .

Swallowing my pride will not get me drunk.


AA-related 'Alconym' . . .

A A = Always Aware.

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AA Just For Today

Excuses

Step Four: Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

"[T]he majority of A.A. members have suffered severely from self-justification during their drinking days. For most of us, self-justification was the maker of excuses; excuses, of course, for drinking, and for all kinds of crazy and damaging conduct. We had made the invention of alibis a fine art. We had to drink because times were hard or times were good. We had to drink because at home we were smothered with love or got none at all. We had to drink because at work we were great successes or dismal failures. We had to drink because our nation had won a war or lost a peace. And so it went, ad infinitum."

© 1952, AAWS, Inc.; Printed 2005; Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, pgs. 46-47

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AA 'Big Book' - Quote

We alcoholics are men and women who have lost the ability to control our drinking. We know that no real alcoholic EVER recovers control. All of us felt at times that we were regaining control, but such intervals - usually brief - were inevitably followed by still less control, which led in time to pitiful and incomprehesible demoralization. - Pg. 30 - More About Alcoholism



"For most normal folks, drinking means conviviality, companionship
and colorful imagination.

It means release from care, boredom and worry. It is joyous intimacy
with friends and a feeling that life is good. But not so with us in
those last days of heavy drinking. The old pleasures were gone.
They were but memories. Never could we recapture the great moments
of the past. There was an insistent yearning to enjoy life as we
once did and a heartbreaking obsession that some new miracle of
control would enable us to do it. There was always one more attempt—
and one more failure."
~Alcoholics Anonymous, pg. 151~



"When we decide who is to hear our story, we waste no time. We have
a written inventory and we are prepared for a long talk. We explain
to our partner what we are about to do and why we have to do it. He
should realize that we are engaged upon a life-and-death errand.
Most people approached in this way will be glad to help; they will be
honored by our confidence."
Alcoholics Anonymous, pg. 75

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Misc. AA Literature - Quote

'Perfect' Humility

For myself, I try to seek out the truest definition of humility that I can. This will not be the perfect definition, because I shall always be imperfect.
At this writing, I would choose one like this: 'Absolute humility would consist of a state of complete freedom from myself, freedom from all the claims that my defects of character now lay so heavily upon me. Perfect humility would be a full willingness, in all times and places, to find and to do the will of God.'
When I meditate upon such a vision, I need not be dismayed because I shall never attain it, nor need I swell with presumption that one of these days its virtues shall all be mine.
I only need to dwell on the vision itself, letting it grow and ever more fill my heart. This done, I can compare it with my last-taken personal inventory. Then I get a sane and healthy idea of where I stand on the highway to humility. I see that my journey toward God has scarce begun.
As I thus get down to my right size and stature, my self-concern and importance become amusing.

GRAPEVINE, JUNE 1961

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Intoxication

"As newcomers, many of us have indulged
in spiritual intoxication.
Like a prospector,
belt drawn in over the last ounce of food,
we saw our pick strike gold.
Joy at our release from a lifetime
of frustration knew no bounds.
The newcomer feels he has struck
something better than gold.
He may not see at once
that he has barely scratched a limitless lode
which will pay dividends
only if he mines it for the rest of his life
and insists on giving away
the entire product."

Alcoholics Anonymous, pp. 128-9
As Bill Sees It, p. 57

Thought to Consider . . .

We give it away to keep it.

*~*~*AACRONYMS*~*~*
T H I N K = The Happiness I Never Knew

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12 X 12 Quote

"When alcoholism strikes, very unnatural situations may develop which
work against marriage partnership and compatible union. If the man is
affected, the wife must become the head of the house, often the
breadwinner. As matters get worse, the husband becomes a sick and
irresponsible child who needs to be looked after and extricated from
endless scrapes and impasses. Very gradually, and usually without any
realization of the fact, the wife is forced to become the mother of an
erring boy. And if she had a strong maternal instinct to begin with,
the situation is aggravated. Obviously not much partnership can exist
under these conditions. The wife usually goes on doing the best she
knows how, but meanwhile the alcoholic alternately loves and hates her
maternal care. A pattern is thereby established that may take a lot of
undoing later on. Nevertheless, under the influence of AA's Twelve
Steps, these situations are often set right." (Twelve and Twelve, Step
Twelve, pg. 117)